Royal Strut
by TopazTheDragon
Summary: Young Lucina is interested in learning a certain skill from her father...but it's not exactly the best thing for her to learn. My attempt to give Chrom more personality. Oneshot, R&R.


A golden scaled wyvern was curled up in the corner of the barracks, watching the scene in front of him. His rider's offspring was growing fast. Seemed like just yesterday, the whelp was barely the size of a sirloin steak. Now it was the size of a small dog, and he still couldn't tell whether it was male or female. He thought the oldest young human in the group was female, but he might be wrong...either way, that one was looking more like its alpha male father every day. His mistress' little one kind of was too. It had its father's fur color. But its eyes were the same color as its mother's.

"What are you doing?" Rene saw Lon'qu give Morgan a fork. "It's nowhere near dinner time."

"I'm starting his sword training early. Figured a fork would be the least dangerous."

"Have you lost your mind? He's not going to know what to do! And...ever heard of a butter knife?"

Morgan blinked at his parents, then thrust the fork into his mouth.

"There, see?" Rene rolled her eyes. "He knows what forks are for...gods, Lonky! Wait until he's out of diapers at least!"

The drool covered fork fell to the ground. "Nee! Nee!"

Rene and Lon'qu looked at each other. That was Morgan's term for horse, but the only animal in the barracks was Sol. Sol wasn't a horse...far from it.

Then Sumia came walking in. "Hi, guys. Have either of you seen Chrom or Lucina?" Breezy, Sumia's pegasus, whinnied a greeting to Sol.

Morgan giggled and waved his arms. "Caw nee!"

"That translates to 'bird horse'." Rene explained. "I have a feeling he's gonna be quite the genius."

"Well he DOES have a genius tactician for a mother. I only hope he got some fierce warrior blood from me too."

Rene laughed and cuffed Lon'qu over the head playfully. "I saw Chrom at lunch, but that was two hours ago. Lucina wasn't with him. He said she was with you."

"You might check the garden, I thought I saw both of them go there a little bit ago." Lon'qu added.

* * *

><p>"Daddy, what's the royal strut Mommy keeps saying you have? Is it a pretty shiny thing? Can I take it for show and tell someday?"<p>

Chrom almost snorted. "I don't know about show and tell. But I can show you it."

Lucina clapped and jumped up and down. "Where's it at?"

"Right here."

"But all I see is flowers and bushes and trees."

"Watch this." Chrom circled one of the hedges, shoulders squared, head held high, and with a distinct spring in his step. "THAT is the royal strut."

Lucina stared for a moment. "Oh! So it's a kind of dance? Like the hokey pokey?"

"...Almost. It's more of a way of walking, a way for people to tell you're royalty right away when they see you."

"Then how come Mommy and Aunt Lissa never do it?" Lucina blinked, then gasped. "It's not something girls can't do, is it? That would be not fair!"

"No." Chrom smiled. "You can do it if you want."

"Yay!" Lucina attempted to copy what her father had done. She got the squared shoulders right, but was almost stomping instead of stepping lightly. When she was finished, she turned to her father and grinned. "How'd I do?"

"You need to try not to stomp around. More like...skipping or a horse walking. And if you see people, you can wave at them and say: 'sup, peasants!'"

"Chrom, what in the world..."

Lucina royal strutted right over to her mother. "Sup, peasants!" The little girl had a playful grin on her face, looking mighty proud of herself.

"Oh, but your mother's not a..." Chrom gulped.

"You honestly can't think of anything better to teach her?"

"What's the matter, Mommy? Am I doing it wrong?"

"Lucina, go find me...one flower of each of the colors of the rainbow. If you can, I'll make pie tonight."

"Okay!" Lucina ran off toward the flower patches. Sumia turned her attention to Chrom. His face was beet red. "...You royal oaf. I can't stay mad at you when you give me that look."

"...Emmeryn would kick my rear."

"She probably would. Just try to teach our little girl good things from now on, okay? We don't want her growing up with a bloated ego."

"Yeah, we don't." Chrom shook his head. "We want her to be as kind and sweet as Emmeryn was."

Sumia chuckled. "Bingo."

Lucina returned with the flowers. "I couldn't find a green one...would a leaf work?"

"Absolutely. Now which kind of pie do you want?"

"Chocolate!"

"Chocolate it is..."


End file.
